THE

WORD

GHOSTS.

Desire Ghosts of Dead Men.

IT would be unjust and against law if desire ghosts of dead men, and of which living men are not usually aware, were allowed to attack and prey upon the living. No desire ghost can act against the law. The law is that no desire ghost of a dead man can attack and force a living man to act against that manâ€™s will or without his consent. The law is that no desire ghost of a dead man can enter the atmosphere and act on the body of a living man unless that man gives expression to such of his own desire as he knows to be wrong. When a man gives way to his own desire which he knows to be wrong he tries to break the law, and the law cannot then protect him. The man who will not allow himself to be held by his own desire to do what he knows to be wrong, acts in accord with the law, and the law protects him against wrong from the outside. A desire ghost is unconscious of and cannot see a man who controls his desire and acts in accord with the law.

The question may occur, how does a man know when he is gratifying his own desire, and when he is feeding a desire ghost of some dead man?

The line of division is subjective and moral, and indicated to him by the â€śNo,â€ť â€śStop,â€ť â€śDonâ€™t,â€ť of his conscience. He is feeding his own desire when he gives way to the natural impulses of the senses, and uses his mind to procure their wants for the senses. In so far as he is procuring the objects of the senses to maintain his body in health and soundness, he serves himself and obeys the law and is protected by it. Going beyond the natural reasonable desires of the senses he comes under the notice of the desire ghosts of dead men of like desires, who are attracted to him and to use his body as a channel to supply their cravings. When he goes beyond the natural wants, he is fashioning a desire ghost or ghosts for himself, which will take form after his death and prey upon the bodies of living men.

Objectively, this state of a desire ghost feeding on a man may be observed by the wide field of action or the manifold satisfaction of the desires of a man. This is so because he is not acting for himself alone, but the extraneous influence of the desire ghost instructs, acts, and brings about conditions for the living man to act under for the ghost.

Desire ghosts obsessing a body may be ousted and kept out. One of the ways to expel them is by exorcism; that is, the magical action of another person upon the ghost in the obsessed. The ordinary form of exorcism is that by incantation and ceremonial acts, such as wearing symbols, bearing a talisman, burning fragrant incense, giving draughts to drink, so as to reach the desire ghost and drive it out through taste and smelling and feeling. With such physical practices many charlatans prey upon the credulity of the obsessed and their relatives who would see the obsessed rid of the indwelling devil. These practices are often employed by such as follow forms, but have little knowledge of the law concerned. Exorcism may also be performed by those who have a knowledge of the nature of the indwelling desire ghosts. One of the methods is that the exorciser, knowing the nature of the desire ghost, pronounces its name and by the power of the Word commands it to depart. No exorciser with knowledge will compell a ghost to leave an obsessed person unless the exorciser sees that it may be done according to law. But whether it is according to law cannot be told by the obsessed nor his friends. That must be known to the exorciser.

One whose atmospheres are pure and who is powerful by virtue of his knowledge and righteous living will by his presence expel the ghosts in others. If one who is obsessed comes into the presence of such a man of purity and power, and is able to remain, the desire ghost has to leave the obsessed; but if the desire ghost is too strong for him, the obsessed is compelled to leave the presence and get out of the atmosphere of purity and power. After the ghost is out, the man must obey the law as he knows it, to keep the ghost out and to prevent it from attacking him.

An obsessed person may oust the desire ghost by a process of reasoning and by his own will. The time to make the effort is the period when the man is lucid; that is, when the desire ghost has not control. It is almost impossible for him to reason or oust the ghost while the ghost is active. But to oust a ghost the man must be able to a degree, to overcome his prejudices, analyze his vices, find his motives, and be strong enough to do what he knows to be right. But one who is able to do this is seldom liable to be obsessed.

Getting rid of a strong desire ghost, such as obsesses a drug fiend, or a thoroughly vice-ridden person, requires more than one effort and requires considerable determination. But any one with a mind can drive out of his body and out of his atmosphere those little desire ghosts of dead men, which seem inconsequential but make of life a hell. Such are the sudden seizures of hatred, jealousy, covetousness, malice. When the light of reason is turned on the feeling or impulse in the heart, or whatever organ is preyed on, the obsessing entity wriggles, squirms under the light. It cannot stay in the light. It must leave. It oozes out as a muculent mass. Clairvoyantly, it may be seen as a semi-liquid, eel-like, resisting creature. But under the light of the mind it must let go. Then there is a compensatory feeling of peace, freedom, and the happiness of satisfaction for having sacrificed these impulses to the knowledge of right.

Everyone knows of the feeling in himself when he tried to overcome an attack of hating or lusting, or jealousy. When he reasoned about it, and seemed to have accomplished his purpose, and to have freed himself, he said, â€śBut I will not; I wonâ€™t let go.â€ť Whenever this came up, it was because the desire ghost took another turn and a new hold. But if the effort of reasoning was kept up, and the light of the mind kept on the feeling, so as to keep it in the light, the seizure finally disappeared.

As stated above (The Word, Vol. 19, No. 3), when a man has died, the totality of the desires which actuated him in life go through different stages. When the mass of desire has reached the point of breaking up, one or several desire ghosts are developed, and the remainders of the desire mass pass into many different physical animal forms (Vol. 19, No. 3, Pages 43, 44); and they are the entities of those animals, generally timid animals, like deer and cattle. These entities, too, are desire ghosts of dead man, but they are not predatory, and do not haunt nor prey on living beings. The predatory desire ghosts of dead men have a period of independent existence, the incident and characteristics of which have been given above.

Now as to the ending of the desire ghost. A desire ghost of a dead man always runs the risk of being destroyed, when it ventures out of its legitimate sphere of action and attacks a man who is too powerful and can destroy the ghost, or if it attacks an innocent or pure person whose karma will not allow the ingression of the desire ghost of the dead. In the case of the strong man, the strong may kill it himself; he needs no other protection. In the case of the innocent, protected by the law, the law provides an executioner for the ghost. These executioners are often certain neophytes, in a third degree of the complete circle of initiations.

When desire ghosts of dead men are not broken up by these methods, their independent existence comes to an end in two ways. When not able to get maintenance by preying on the desires of men, they become weak and break up and are dissipated. In the other case, after a desire ghost of a dead man has preyed upon the desires of the living and is of sufficient strength, it incarnates in the body of a ferocious animal.

All the desires of a man, gentle, normal, ferocious, vicious, are drawn together during antenatal development of the physical body, at the period of reincarnation of the ego. The entrance of Noah into his ark, taking all the animals with him, is an allegory of the event. At this time of reincarnation, the desires which had produced a desire ghost of the former personality, come back, generally as a formless mass, and go into the foetus through the woman. That is the normal way. The physical parents are the father and mother of the physical body; but the incarnating mind is the father-mother of its desires, as of its other non-physical traits.

It may be that the desire ghost of the former personality resists entrance into the new body, because the ghost is still too active, or is in the body of an animal not ready to die. Then the child is born, lacking that particular desire. In such case, the desire ghost, when liberated and if still too strong to be dissipated and to enter into the atmosphere as an energy, is attracted to and lives in the psychic atmosphere of the reincarnated mind, and is a satellite or â€śdwellerâ€ť in his atmosphere. It might act through the man as a special desire at certain periods in his life. This is a â€śdweller,â€ť but not the terrible â€śdwellerâ€ť spoken of by occultists, and of the Jeckyl-Hyde mystery, where the Hyde was the â€śdwellerâ€ť of Dr. Jeckyl.